I'll try to keep this short and easy to follow.
The issue. My daughter sells various printed items, some personalised, and wanted an easier, more efficient way of producing certain items for print & cut that require personalised text. She's got a good head for selling but is not technically-minded and knows no coding languages.
The concept. So, I got to thinking that I could code a web app (written in PHP and using the FPDF extension) to enable her to simply input a design number for the image required, a line or two of text, and at the click of a button a PDF file would be produced complete with the required image, registration marks, and formatted personalised text, all ready for printing and cutting.
The result. We now have a working app that runs inside any web browser, anywhere, that allows us to retrieve any of our designs from our web server and produces a PDF ready to print & cut.
Here are a few screenshots of the process, in this case producing personalised labels for Xmas sweet tubs which we print on glossy sticker paper for the customer to apply to their own sweet tubs ...
1. The end product as advertised by us.
2. The app interface running in the browser.
3. The resulting PDF after clicking the yellow 'Print' button, with Reg Marks ready for printing out and contour cutting.
4. The finished item.
This method could be applied to all manner of items requiring personalised text such as JPSS and 3gJET-OPAQUE t-shirt transfers, etc. We use it A LOT on various different products and it has never let us down. The PHP code is very short and, as stated above, uses the FPDF extension for producing the PDF with image and text. No point in reinventing the wheel, as they say!